The restaurant I worked at in college (a steakhouse) had the most amazing creamed spinach. I crave it from time to time. I usually just throw the ingredients together without much measuring going on, but this time I set the amounts to try to be more exact, and here’s what I came up with.
It’s a basic Bechamel cheese sauce.
Salt, pepper, onion powder, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg make up the spices. And TONS of fresh garlic (tons. It was garlic-y)
Using this garlic slicer makes quick work…
For processing a large amount of garlic quickly.
A pound of fresh spinach. You could probably use frozen as well but it’s so easy to cook. I added about 1/4 cup of water to the bottom, put on the lid and brought it up to a quick boil.
Terrible picture, but you can see how much a pound of spinach cooks down to. After this I ran it under cold water to stop the cooking.
Melt butter in a pan.
Add flour and cook for a minute to remove flour-y flavor.
Add milk, spices and GARLIC and cook until thickened. If the milk is warmed first in the microwave, this goes much faster.
Add cheese and stir until melted. You’re going to want to use a good Parmesan on this. We buy it by the wheel because it’s so good.
Add spinach and adjust seasonings if necessary.
This was so good. It was actually even better the next day. The sauce is relatively stable if you don’t heat it too hot (I took it to Thanksgiving one year and they put it in a 450 degree oven to “keep warm”. The sauce broke all over the place. So don’t do that. So embarrassing. It was my first Thanksgiving with the in-laws and my husband had bragged about what a great cook I am).
We served it with paprika pork chops.
Creamed spinach
Ingredients
- 16 ounces fresh spinach
- 2/3 cup milk
- 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup Parmesan shredded
- 4 cloves garlic sliced or minced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg grated
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
Instructions
- Steam the spinach lightly and run under cold water to stop cooking, Melt butter in pan and add flour. Cook for a minute to remove floury flavor. Add milk and heavy whipping cream and cook until thickened. Add garlic and spices. Add cheese and cook until melted. Add spinach back to pot and heat through.
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